South African citizens are planning to embark on a nationwide protest that may ground all national activities in the country.
The planned protest which is gaining momentum on Twitter might come to reality if the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a South African left-wing to far-left pan-Africanist political party announces to participate.
The country which is always regarded as Nigeria’s rival in all sectors after Ghana, is grappling with fuel price hike, high unemployment and economic decline.
A litre of fuel in the country is sold at R23.845 and has put it around 40% more expensive than it was last year, a development that has subjected President Cyril Ramaphosa to heavy criticisms by its people.
The national government has already announced that the litre will soon be sold for R25 which has put South Africans on agitation.
A Nigerian lawyer resident in Cape Town, Austin Okeke told Vanguard on Monday that the Eskom, the South African electricity public organisation has been on strike for two weeks which has thrown the country into two weeks of power outage.
Okeke said: “Today it’s (the fuel price per litre) over R23. In two days’ time it will be over R25. Last year it was about R18. Government announced it already. Eskom the NEPA equivalent is on strike already. And there has been power outage for over 2 weeks now. Other sectors will go on strike soon.”
National Shutdown is trending on Twitter among South Africans as Nwgana Ngwato @ipsmok tweeted: “This fuel price increase ya today calls for a #NationalShutdown. This is unacceptable, how do you as someone who swore to serve the people stand in front of them and announce such?”
DuMisane @Dumisane_rsa said: “Cyril Ramaphosa Mgodoyi has failed everything, he promised people who elected him. No accountability. Bad economy. No jobs. Eskom crisis. Privatisation of SOEs. #NationalShutdown.”
“It’s high time the #NationalShutdown is implemented, not just on our phones. #PetrolDieselPriceHike is out of our hand, we can’t continue like this as a country,” Zwonaka Tshivhase @mylight_zt said.